This summer I participated in the Humanistic Buddhist Monastic Life Program at Fo Guang Shan Monastery near Kaohsiung, Taiwan. I experienced a week of silence, meditating for about ten hours each day. There was no speaking, no hand gestures, and no eye contact. I also took part in the International Youth Seminar on Life and Ch'an where I met people from all over the world, both practicing Buddhists and those interested in learning. I studied at Fo Guang University and learned about Buddhism from monastics, professors, and experts on Ch'an and Pure Land. I toured the country for two weeks after the conclusion of the program, seeing much of what Taiwan has to offer. I shaved my head, became vegetarian, chanted sutras, and survived typhoons. I lived the monastic life and began to discover how fulfilling it is to focus my mind and search within.

1. “By understanding your true self, “If we learn to open our hearts,
you will be able to see part of you in anyone, including the people
everything in this world, and who drive us crazy, can be our
everything in the world will be part teacher.”
of you. This is true harmony.” ― Pema Chödrön
― Ven. Master Hsing Yun
“Your mind is yours. It is the
“You are an aperture through
greatest thing you own and the
which the universe is looking at
greatest thing you will ever
and exploring itself.”
This summer I participated in the Humanistic Buddhist find.”
― Alan Wilson Watts
Monastic Life Program at Fo Guang Shan Monastery near ― Ven. Master Hsing Yun
Kaohsiung, Taiwan. I experienced a week of silence, meditating for
about ten hours each day. There was no speaking, no hand
gestures, and no eye contact. I also took part in the International
Youth Seminar on Life and Ch'an where I met people from all over
the world, both practicing Buddhists and those interested in
learning. I studied at Fo Guang University and learned about
Buddhism from monastics, professors, and experts on Ch'an and
Pure Land. I toured the country for two weeks after the conclusion
of the program, seeing much of what Taiwan has to offer. I shaved
my head, became vegetarian, chanted sutras, and survived
typhoons. I lived the monastic life and began to discover how
fulfilling it is to focus my mind and search within.
“Without inner peace, outer "The religion of the future will
peace is impossible. We all wish be a cosmic religion. It should
for world peace, but world transcend personal God and
peace will never be avoid dogma and theology.
achieved unless we first Covering both the natural and
establish peace within our own the spiritual, it should be based
minds. We can send so-called on a religious sense arising
'peacekeeping forces' into areas from the experience of all
of conflict, but peace cannot be things natural and spiritual
opposed from the outside with as a meaningful unity.
guns. Only by creating peace Buddhism answers this
within our own mind and description... If there is any
helping others to do the same religion that could cope with
can we hope to achieve peace in modern scientific needs, it
this world.” would be Buddhism.”
― Geshe Kelsang Gyatso ― Albert Einstein